Corbett works his way in to Premier class

posted 3 Sep 2011, 03:34 by Unknown user

KEITH DUGGAN

THE TRANSFORMATION of Lar
Corbett has been so gradual and smooth that nobody really noticed it
happening. Nicky English didn’t exactly pluck the Thurles man from the
ether 11 years ago, but he saw enough in the flashes that Corbett,
overlooked for the county minor team of 1999, produced on winter fields
to convince him he was the real thing.

“I suppose it was a bit
like Aidan O’Brien spotting a good horse,” says Denis Maher, who coached
Corbett at underage and senior level with Sarsfields. “He saw
something.”

English’s instinct was proven immediately correct when
Corbett performed well as a teenager in Tipperary’s 2001 All-Ireland
winning team. But it could be argued only now are the Tipperary public
seeing the mature vision of what English sensed a decade ago. When
Corbett started out playing with Tipperary, Declan Ryan, his coach
tomorrow, was the senior figure on the side. Ryan was cut in the
traditional mould – a hefty full forward with the light feet and the
deftest touch and Corbett and Eoin Kelly were like kids running around
him.

This week, Ryan noted the sweeping changes that have taken
place within the game, from collective fitness and physique to the
tactical influence. Corbett has grown up in that culture, in the
on-going quest for near perfection in which Kilkenny seemed to have a
march on everybody else.

The first half of Corbett’s career was
about a rangy forward with an on-off talent for creating precocious
goals from nothing and a tendency towards injury. But in the past four
years he has moved into a different realm. The

three goals in last
year’s momentous All-Ireland final registered as one of the more
celebrated feats in Tipperary hurling lore. It is also highlighted how
Corbett has become a consistent and heavyweight presence on the
Tipperary team. He has become a leader and the consensus is that
stopping Corbett is the key to stopping Tipperary.

“Larry is there
10 years and he knows he needs to step up to the mark,” says Eamon
Corcoran, Tipperary’s former All-Star half back and team-mate of
Corbett. “When Lar came in first, there were a lot of big personalities
and he probably tended to shy off a bit. Players respect him so much
now. You see it when he is out – he is a popular lad at home when he is
out. I was waiting for Lar to become vocal and it is only in the last
number of years that he has done that.

“But he had to get his game
right and now that that is there, he has taken up that role. For me, he
has bought into the set-up Tipperary developed. His work-rate is as
hard as any forward in the country and that element of his game is there
now and it probably wasn’t there for a number of years.

“Plus,
from Larry’s point of view, the supply of ball he is getting now is much
faster and quicker. The forwards around him seem to be on the same
wavelength. He probably has gotten used to playing with Noel McGrath and
it is a more settled forward line.”

Two forces undid Kilkenny
last September: Henry Shefflin’s injury and Corbett’s goals. The
clairvoyant line of communication he has developed with McGrath was
crackling and Tipperary’s second goal, created by a handpass which left
three Kilkenny men turning towards their own goal to discover Corbett
already there and ready to strike, was the pick of the bunch.

But his first goal had nothing to do with his celebrated burst of speed.

Instead,
he stood his ground under a dropping ball and shook Noel Hickey off his
left shoulder while catching the ball with his right hand and making
light work of the finish.

“He has good fetching ability which is
another string to his bow,” says Eamon O’Shea, who coached Corbett as a
member of the successful management team last year.

“He has this
good positional sense under a dropping ball so even if he is physically
dominated, his height and reach enables him to pluck a ball. So he is
not just reliant on his pace. He had been a centre forward and he had
spoken about when is the right moment to be there for a one on one. And
he developed that knack for knowing what the right moment is.”

O’Shea
was taken by Corbett’s willingness to work as much as with his natural
ability. Liam Sheedy constantly drilled the forwards to get their
requisite number of blocks in at training and O’Shea remembers the
pleasure Corbett took from meeting that total. Corbett’s form yielded
6-11 in the championship last year, but he never lost sight of the
importance of the collective.

Last year, about an hour after
Tipperary’s All-Ireland win, he came strolling along the dressingroom
area in the company of Shane McGrath, completely relaxed. When asked
about the three goals, he immediately began to distribute the credit and
sounded genuine when he declared it was immaterial to him who had
gotten them. “You have to look at Bonner Maher for the third goal,”
Corbett said that day.“He was on the flat of his back on the edge of the
square and he held on to the ball . . . could have been called for
over-carrying, but no, he got up and gave the handpass out and the hard
work was done . . . It does not matter who gets the scores as long as we
put in the work-rate. And the thing about it is that if the work-rate
is put in the ball will spill out to someone.”

Later in that
conversation, he recalled how O’Shea had told them before the match
there were goals in the team and it was up to them to go and get them.
The spurned chances of the 2009 final were still fresh in their minds.
Last September, they were coldly clinical. The shimmering confidence
that marked Corbett’s finishing was evidence on the most important stage
of all of a player in exuberant form. “Playing with abandon,” as O’Shea
puts it.

After the initial success under English, Corbett’s years
with Tipperary were characterised by a kind of turbulence. Managers
came and went – Michael Doyle, Ken Hogan and Babs Keating all tried to
respond to Kilkenny’s forbidding grip. Meanwhile, Corbett was trying to
cope with a worsening hamstring condition which spoiled several seasons
for him. The low point might have been in the 2005 championship, when he
cracked a fine goal against Clare, set Micheál Webster up for the next
and was about to pull the trigger again when he felt a familiar tear. A
few voices of discontent greeted Corbett’s departure that afternoon – it
was a sight they had seen too often.

That autumn, Thurles Sars
won their first county championship in 31 years. Corbett was on the
field, but had managed about six training sessions.

It seems weird now to see no brackets after his name in the match report, but he did not score that day.

He
saw specialist after specialist and was advised to quit. Instead, he
turned to former sprinter Gary Ryan and began to rehabilitate himself.
The injuries stopped recurring; Corbett grew stronger and more
confident.

He has a low-key, laid-back nature that helped him
during years when Tipperary championship seasons seemed bound for
disappointment.

In 2008, he told this newspaper not making the
Tipp minors didn’t bother him because he figured he was only good enough
to make the panel. That didn’t interest him. And by 2008, he was
acutely aware of the fact he had a limited number of years with which to
enhance his All-Ireland medal haul.

“Things take you by
surprise,” he said. “I see younger lads coming into the panel now and I
remember being like them and playing in an All-Ireland. The years don’t
be long going. I just hope I get a shot at another one.”

And now
Corbett is preparing to contest his third All-Ireland final in a row.
Once again, he is in hurler- of-the-year country. His profile has risen
immeasurably since Tipperary’s return to prominence. Three years ago, he
was working as an electrician. Since the economic collapse, that work
has dried up and Corbett was among those GAA stars who spoke on the
Late Late Show about the difficulties of finding work. Earlier
this year, he went back into the family pub trade and opened a bar in
his home town of Thurles.

“He has matured as a person too,” Denis
Maher says.“Lar scored three goals in an All-Ireland final – but they
are not the only goals he scored. He has scored a lot of important goals
for us down the years. Lar always took things in his stride. I mean, it
surprised us all those years ago when he didn’t make the minor panel
but he accepted it and moved on. He is a cool kind of guy. He thinks
things through and he has the whole package now.”

Corcoran retired
from intercounty hurling just before this latest period of success for
the Premier County. He laughs when he remembers Corbett’s ability to
explode away from defenders at training. “Like he pressed a button,” he
remembers. He expects a tough and cagey final on Sunday, predicting that
closing down the Thurles man will be central to Kilkenny’s plans.

“I
can’t see it being a goal-fest or Lar being given anything like the
space he had last year. But it’s the old story. Whichever team gets the
goals will probably win. And now Lar’s injuries have cleared up, we’re
seeing the work- rate and confidence of the player.”